Top news reporter Zhang Ru Mao Yake
Yan Lianke was born in 1958 in Song County, Henan Province. He began writing in 1979 and has won the 1st and 2nd Lu Xun Literature Awards, the 12th World Chinese Literature Awards in Malaysia, and the shortlist of the British International Booker Prize in 2012. In 2014, he was awarded the Czech Kafka Prize for Literature. In 2015, "Living" won the Japanese "Twitter" Literary Award. In 2016, he was shortlisted for the British International Booker Award again, and in the same year, "Sun Extinguished" won the Hong Kong Dream of the Red Chamber Literature Award. In 2017, he was shortlisted for the International Booker Award for the third time. In 2020, he won the Newman Literary Prize in the United States, and "Year, Month and Day" won the French International Anti-Hunger Organization Book Award. In 2021, he received the Royal Literary Society Lifetime Achievement Award. His works have been translated into more than 30 languages and more than 100 works have been published in foreign languages. He is currently a professor, writer, and Chair Professor of Chinese Culture at the Faculty of Letters at Chinese University.
Some readers once used the phrase "this is a truly pure writer" to evaluate Yan Lianke.
Yan Lianke, who was born in 1958, is 64 years old this year, and when he first met him, he had silver hair and looked much more vicissitudes than his peers. As one of the most prestigious contemporary writers, his works have always maintained high production and high standards, and he has twice won many heavyweight awards at home and abroad, such as the Lu Xun Literature Award, the Malaysian World Chinese Literature Award, the Royal British Literary Association Lifetime Achievement Award, and became the first Czech Kafka Literary Award winner among Chinese writers, and was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize three times.
There is no doubt that Yan Lianke is not only a pure writer, but also a successful writer. But in recent years, it has become apparent that he seems to be increasingly skeptical about the meaning of writing. In the epilogue to his novel Quick Sleep, he wrote, "I have never felt the meaninglessness of writing as I do today. I often suspect that my life's writing is a joke. If not at this age... Over time I get bored, bored, bored, and I really don't write anymore." Even in answering such a big question as how to summarize his writing and the course of his life, only eight words were used.
Where do such negative emotions come from? If you feel that writing is meaningless, why do you keep working hard? What advice would he give to young writers from Yu nationality?
With these questions in mind, on March 12, in the midst of the gentle spring rain, the reporter and his party rushed to the county seat of Song County, Yuxi Province. Here we met Yan Lianke. Although he has been away from his hometown for decades, his hometown voice has not changed. The cordial Henan accent instantly dissolved the restraint of everyone's first meeting, and the whole interview process was more like three or five fellow villagers "nagging", and at this moment, he was the "tianhu child" who returned home from a foreign land.
"My feelings about my hometown are actually not as complicated and profound as everyone thinks"
Top Interview: Every time you return to Tianhu, do you have new feelings? You have been away from the rural land for more than forty years, but your writing has always been based on rural themes, what role has your hometown played in your literary creation?
Yan Lianke: My feelings about my hometown are actually not as complicated and profound as everyone thinks.
Although I have been away for more than 40 years, every time I come back, I feel that I have never left. The land, the trees, the human feelings, the hardships and paradoxes of communication, and survival, every time I come back, I feel that it is still like that, and it is the same as when I left.
In other words, I have never felt that I have left, just as I have never felt that my home has been in Beijing, and the role of my hometown in my writing is the "land" of writing, the "root" of writing. In my life, I have never written beyond this land, or alienated from it and its roots.
So I don't think the land plays any role in my writing, but the land is the writing itself.
Top interview: After years of construction, the scene of rural life is now completely different from the countryside we remember, so can the current hometown still feed your creative inspiration?
Yan Lianke: In fact, the scene of rural life has indeed changed dramatically.
But I feel that everything in my hometown seems to have never changed, which is a very strange feeling, probably because the countryside has changed into a scene, and what has not changed is the human heart.
The goodness, evil, warmth, and ethics in people's minds, in the face of money, desire, and reality, the complex and absurd uninterrupted occurrence. I think today and yesterday are the same, this year and last year are the same, this decade and that decade, twenty years or even thirty or fifty years, I always feel that almost nothing has changed.
Lu Xun's criticism is still there, and Shen Congwen's praises are still there, and it may be because of this that I said that what has changed is the scene, and what has not changed is the human heart.
"Year Month Day" Yan Lianke, Mill Iron Culture, Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House, June 2021
"I hope I can also write a "Chat Zai Zhiyi""
Top interview: Three years ago, you said in an interview with a reporter that you are already in your 60s, and life has left you little creative time, so you no longer think about whether your words will provoke right and wrong, but should think about how to write and live. A few years have passed, has this thinking yielded some results?
Yan Lianke: This is an extremely sad question, but as far as the novels are concerned, I have written 16. For my age, it was inevitable to be overwhelmed. So, within the limits of my age, I hope to write a few more novels. More importantly, I often have the illusion of greed, always feeling that I can write a new novel that is different from anyone else.' It may be a little arrogant to say this, but I always have such obsessions and feelings. In a way, I write non-stop every day in order to get close to and grasp the obsession and feeling, and finally write a book that is different from anyone else.
Top Interview: If you were to use a few keywords to summarize and sort out your creative career, what words would you hope it would be?
Yan Lianke: A lifetime of hard work, in the end nothing. This is my summary of my writing and life process today.
Top Interview: In recent years, you seem to have become more and more skeptical about the meaning of writing, and even said that writing is no longer a happy thing for you.
Yan Lianke: Yes, because every time a work is written, there will be a lot of regrets, coupled with age, body, disease, the decline of thinking, and their own writing, always more willing to face the dilemma and pain in life and survival, and the dilemma and pain will not make the writer feel happy to write. In the past three years, I have been teaching in Hong Kong, and I am talking about the classical Chinese masterpiece "Liaozhai Zhiyi". As I read it, I discovered more and more the greatness of "Chatting with Zai Zhiyi".
I hope that my writing will not only continue the literary experience of Europe and the United States, but also return to the classical literary experience of China, specifically, I hope that the literary heritage of "Liaozhai" can continue, take root and bear fruit in the modern and realistic Chinese experience, and hope that "Liaozhai" will go from classical to "modern" and enter the current life and writing. I am currently preparing and working on this kind of writing.
In a word, I hope that I will also write a "Chat Zai Zhiyi".
Top Interview: The way you tell your work is unique. In other words, how to use the "Yan Lianke" thinking to construct a sentence, a paragraph, a story, or how to precipitate and cultivate yourself if you want to achieve this kind of longitude and latitude?
Yan Lianke: Connecting those illogical and causeless things in life and giving them logic and cause and effect is the best cultivation and precipitation.
"They" Yan Lianke, Mill Iron Books / Henan Literature and Art Publishing House, May 2020
"The world is big and our writing is not as meaningful as we think"
Top Interview: Now that the term "lie flat" is popular among young people, how do you see this phenomenon? What are the creative suggestions for young writers from Yu nationality?
Yan Lianke: "Lying flat" can be understood as lying flat, and it can also be understood as resisting and reactionary life in another way. Don't pay too much attention to this new vocabulary, the new vocabulary will pass quickly. As for the young writers of Yu nationality, they all write better than me and read more than I do. I wouldn't and shouldn't have any advice, and if I had to say something, just say, "The world is big, and our writing isn't as meaningful as we think."
Top Interview: Two important elements of your new book, "Them," are the countryside and women. Now the problem that everyone gets together after tea and dinner often discusses is that urban women now seem to be less comfortable than rural women, and once doubted the meaning of their efforts, what do you think about this phenomenon?
Yan Lianke: You are all envious of rural women in the city, where can you experience the envy of rural women for your life in the city. What you envy is their laziness and freedom, but what they envy is your soul and independence that is different from them.
Top Interview: Next month's 23rd is World Book Day, can you recommend us a good book you recently read?
Yan Lianke: The most recent good novel I read was "Stone of Patience" by the Afghan writer Attic Rahimi living in France. The novel has not yet been published in mainland China, but the Crown Publishing House in Taiwan has already translated and published it. The novel is very well written, and I believe that our side will soon buy the copyright and translate and publish it.
Top Interview: What kind of state is your daily life, and are there any other hobbies besides reading and writing?
Yan Lianke: My life is extremely boring, except for reading and writing, I am concerned about American professional basketball, and I have almost no other hobbies.
"My Father and My Father", Yan Lianke, Guomai Culture / Henan Literature and Art Publishing House, January 2019
Reporter's Note:
Teacher Yan Lianke returned to his hometown this time, the itinerary was compact, so the reporter did not have the opportunity to visit Teacher Yan's home, but agreed to conduct an interview in song county. One of the entourage was a former friend of Teacher Yan. After the interview, on the way to Luoyang Longmen Station, in the midst of smoke and rain, he pointed to a white-walled village and introduced to reporters that it was Teacher Yan's hometown, and Teacher Yan had to come back every year to see the place. The reporter looked at the rapidly retreating village, and in his heart he had some answers about why this famous writer, who had already gone to the world, was still so modest and cautious. Because his roots are deeply rooted in this pristine land.
When you first meet Mr. Yan Lianke, and if you don't know his identity, you will never think of the identity of "he is a writer", let alone a famous writer with a national reputation or even the whole world. Teacher Yan in front of him, with loving eyes, kind attitude, and gentle speech, is no different from his uncle in his hometown.
Here we must mention a detail that has to be said, after our interview, the peers want to add Teacher Yan WeChat, there is no imaginary excuse and refusal, Teacher Yan directly took out the mobile phone from his pocket, put on the reading glasses he carried, opened his WeChat two-dimensional code, and made it convenient for people around him to scan the code one by one. One of them, because of the network relationship, did not scan the code successfully, thought "it is not good to scan again", and "gave up". Who knows, when Teacher Yan accepted the application to modify the name of the remarks one by one, he noticed that the friend of this friend was missing the verification, and directly turned around and asked: "Why didn't I see your application..."?
At that time, the rain temporarily stopped, and This small act of Teacher Yan, like a spring seedling, gave us the spring we hoped for; like a blooming plum blossom, ignited our colorful life.
We must take this spring, this flower, on the road, and start a different life.